Check a schematic or board

The app does not implement its own rule checker. It runs KiCad’s — via kicad-cli, the command-line tool inside your KiCad installation — and then explains what came back.

DRC, on a board

Open the PCB tab. If you have a board open in KiCad, the app finds it automatically. Otherwise pick a .kicad_pcb file.

You get KiCad’s real violations, each with a plain-language explanation of what the rule means, why it fired on your board, and what would typically fix it.

ERC, on a schematic

Open the Schematic tab and pick the schematic file. You have to choose it explicitly, every time.

That is not laziness. KiCad’s live API can resolve the path of an open board but has no equivalent call for an open schematic — the API returns “no handler available”, confirmed by testing against the real thing. Until KiCad adds it, there is no way to know which schematic you are looking at.

Reading the results

Explanations are generated from the violation KiCad reported plus what the app knows about the parts involved. They are a translation layer, not a second opinion — the authority is KiCad’s own checker.

Two things to keep in mind. A suggested fix is a suggestion; you decide whether it is right for your board. And a clean check means your board passes the rules KiCad was configured with, which is not the same as the board being correct.

What this will not do

It will not fix anything. No auto-correction, no rule editing, no writing to your board. It reads and explains; you edit in KiCad.

There is also no AI review of your schematic yet — nothing that looks at the whole design and volunteers concerns. That is real planned work, not something available today.

If it cannot run

The most common cause is that kicad-cli was not found. It lives inside your KiCad installation, and on some platforms it is not on your PATH. Set the path override in Settings, and use Copy Diagnostics if you need to report it.